


Not a Bad Deal at All

by gratuitousWordsmith



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Humanstuck, walmartstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:20:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gratuitousWordsmith/pseuds/gratuitousWordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Dave Strider. <br/>And you think it’s pretty damn ironic to live in a box outside of Walmart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Bad Deal at All

You are Dave Strider.   
And you think it’s pretty damn ironic to live in a box outside of Walmart.

  
You are in your forties, and quit your job at the record store. And by quit, you mean fired. And by fired, you mean because the store closed. Apparently kids these days get their shitty tunes online.   
Whatever.  
You are proud that you still know what sick beats are.

You erected your corrugated fort by the pay phones and cart return. Ain’t nothing in the laws that says you can’t chill here instead of your lame-ass apartment.

You lazily sip a generic brand can of orange soda that you managed to con off of the soda-machine refill guy. The wind blows harshly and you think about what Egbert would do if he were here with his Ghostbusters re-enactment group. Probably shout the windy ghosty thing or something.

An employee leaves the store, helping some old- you realize the irony of that statement- black lady push her cart to a beat-up suburban. As they pass you, a five dollar bill falls into your lap.   
“Oh honey,” the woman says, “go get yourself a hot meal.” She turns to the blue-vested worker. “Poor thing must be freezin’!” They continue onto her car as you tuck the cash into your pocket.

The employee returns. He’s some young kid, probably working his way through highschool. Or college. You couldn’t really tell. “Hey old man.”  
“Yo.”  
“What are you doing out here?” He crosses his arm and surveys you through his glasses.  
“Sleeping,” you say, hoping he’ll get off your case.  
“Thleeping?” Kid’s got a gnarly lisp, you guess. “Dothen’t look like it.”  
“So?”  
“Tho you thould get in here and talk to my manager.” You sign and roll your eyes and decide, eh, wouldn’t hurt  to humor this dude for a few minutes.

You stand up and brush off your red-sweatshirt-with-the-damn-record-store’s-logo-on-the-front. The kid tells you to “get your thit and hurry up” . You double check that you have all forty-one dollars and thirty cents you had earlier and let him lead the way. He takes you in the dimly-lit store that smells a whole awful like your big brother’s stable at his old house when you were growing up. You actually liked the horse, but that thing stunk. Bad. He takes you behind the customer [complete lack of] service desk and shoves you into an office.  
“Rothe?”  
“Yes, Mr. Captor?”  
“Thith man needth a job.”  
“Well then he’ll have to fill out an application like everyone els- oh. It’s him. Taken to sleeping in shopping carts, have you Strider?”  
“I don’t want to hear what my shopping-cart naps have to do with the fact that daddy didn’t love me enough or something stupid like that, Lalonde.”  
“But you want a job?”  
“No, I just get off on seeing your workers in their cute little vests.” Your sarcasm doesn’t fly past her perfect poker face. The same poker face you’ve known for twenty-eight years. She aged well, you think. Looks like her mom, y’know, when her mom was youngerish. ish.

Turns out the midnight crew shifts aren’t that bad. She let you keep your shades. And all you had to do was wave at old(er) ladies and stick happy-face stickers on children. But being bored easily is what you do best. You even wrote a Walmart rap to bust out during the eleven-o-clock-I-really-need-a-snack-to-watch-with-american-idol-reruns-with rush, but both Captor and Lalonde told you that people don’t like to hear expletives or exacly how often they clean the bathrooms.   
The other greeter, Makara, was maybe twenty-something. He obviously was plucked out of a drug house. He says some sassy tree came down dressed like an angel and guided him to the big blue star in the sky and helped him find his inner meaning. And free french fries with lunch at the in-store McDonalds.

Not a bad deal at all.


End file.
